Layoffs, closures at two media giants

The day started with News Corporation announcing the closure of its iPad only publication The Daily.

Shortly after the announcement, news started spreading about buyouts at The New York Times newsrooms. Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson reportedly asked 30 highly paid managers to consider severance packages, although newer editors and reporters could possibly accept the buyouts, according to The Atlantic Wire.

"There is no getting around the hard news that the size of the newsroom staff must be reduced,” she said in an email to the Times staff on Monday. “I hope the needed savings can be achieved through voluntary buyouts but if not, I will be forced to go to layoffs among the excluded staff.”

The Times initiated buyouts in 2008, 2009, and 2011.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch’s experiment in iPad-only publishing will be closing shop on Dec. 16. The Daily, which launched in February 2011, was a “bold experiment in digital publishing and an amazing vehicle for innovation,” News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said in a press release.

He said The Daily failed because it did not establish an audience quickly enough to prove that the business model of paid subscriptions was successful.

(Curiously, the press release announcing The Daily’s closure doesn’t mention the shuttering until the 18th paragraph.)

News Corp. plans to incorporate the lessons it’s learned from The Daily, as well as the technology and some of its staff, into the New York Post. Jesse Angelo, the founding editor of The Daily and long-time executive editor of the Post, will takeover as publisher at the newspaper.

Media pundits spent much of the morning on Twitter discussing the closure of The Daily. Several celebrated its vision, among them Reuters business columnist Felix Salmon, who tweeted: